Say I have a rogue with the following feats: Nimble Dodge and Nimble Roll.
Suppose they are adjacent to an enemy which is using a strike action to attack them which then misses and I use my rogue’s Nimble Dodge + Nimble Roll to stride 10 feet away.
As I understand it, this stride will trigger the enemy’s Attack of Opportunity.
However, now suppose that my rogue also has the Mobility feat in addition to Nimble Dodge and Nimble Roll and their speed is 25.
The Mobility feat on page 184 of the CRB says:
When you take a Stride action to move half your Speed or less, that movement does not trigger reactions.
The Nimble Roll feat on page 187 says:
When you use Nimble Dodge and the triggering attack fails or critically fails, or when you succeed or critically succeed at the saving throw, you can also Stride up to 10 feet as part of the reaction. If you do, the reaction gains the move trait.
If I’m reading this correctly, the 10 ft movement provided by Nimble Roll is a stride action that results in a move less than half my rogue’s speed. Therefore shouldn't it benefit from the Mobility feat and not trigger the enemy’s Attack of Opportunity?
What about a high level Barbarian with Devastator:
Your Strikes are so devastating that you hardly care about resistance, and your barbarian abilities are unparalleled. Your proficiency rank for your barbarian class DC increases to master. Your melee Strikes ignore 10 points of a creature’s resistance to their physical damage.
making a Sudden Charge?
With a quick sprint, you dash up to your foe and swing. Stride twice. If you end your movement within melee reach of at least one enemy, you can make a melee Strike against that enemy. You can use Sudden Charge while Burrowing, Climbing, Flying, or Swimming instead of Striding if you have the corresponding movement type.
Wouldn't you allow the Barbarian to ignore resistance on their Strike?
I must say that the developers used the words 'melee attack' instead of Strike in pretty much every other similar bonus a Barbarian can get, maybe to avoid this kind of interactions.
I think one has to see if the ability references "Stride" or "Stride action". The former includes all instances of Stride while the latter only includes one, the Stride action alone.
Since Mobility references only the Stride action, it does not work with other actions (or Reactions, etc.) that reference Stride (except the other movement types that feat specifically lists).
ETA: Paizo/PF2 seems to be particular about this so they can worry less about stacking abilities. It helps future-proof against weirdness to keep actions distinct like this rather than having abilities that broadly apply.
You're getting hung up on that the example happens to be worded that way. The actual rule, which the example is elaborating upon, is "Using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions."
So using Nimble Dodge enhanced by Nimble Roll is not the same as using a Stride action.
Quick point of information, on page 461 of the CRB it says: "There are four types of actions: single actions, activities, reactions, and free actions."
Does this mean that reactions are activities? Or does it mean that reactions have subordinate actions?
That doesn't mean either of those. It mears reactions are a type of action.
They can have subordinate actions, but they don't always.
That doesn't mean either of those. It mears reactions are a type of action.
They can have subordinate actions, but they don't always.
Sorry I forgot to add can in my previous post so maybe I caused some confusion.
Nimble Dodge is a reaction which when enhanced with Nimble Roll allows a Stride.
And since we're saying that the Stride in this case is a subordinate action, then it must be subordinate to the Nimble Dodge + Nimble Roll reaction, right?
So the reaction in this case has a subordinate action which means that either reactions more generally can have subordinate actions or the reaction itself is an activity which would mean that reactions more generally are activities (or at least can be).
It sounds like we're saying the first alternative - that reactions can have subordinate actions, is that right?
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Of course reactions can have subordinate actions. A lot of them do. You also have things like Attack of Opportunity, or Stand Still that have subordinate Strikes.
Got it. Thank you!
Reactions can have subordinate actions, and when they do they are also activities (since "activity" just means a combination or alteration of actions).
Does this mean that the acrobatics skill action Tumble Through is an activity and therefore can't benefit from Mobility either?
Anything which is a named action (read: anything that has an action symbol next to its name in the book) is that named action - not any of the named actions found within its description.
So it is correct that Mobility is not applicable to the Tumble Through action.
What about the fighter feat Shielded Stride? It says “you can Stride” instead of “When you take a Stride action” as per Mobility. Does this mean Shielded Stride works with Tumble Through and Nimble Roll (assuming a multi class dedication build)?
I see 9 instances where the verbiage refers to a “Stride action” instead simply “Stride” which IIRC occurs well over 100 times in the CRB. Moreover 2 of the instances of the former verbiage occur in Rogue feats and in no other class description.
It’s almost like a different author wrote the Rogue class entry.
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I think Mobility does apply to Nimble Roll. You are still taking a Stride Action, and Mobility doesn't care when you take the Stride Action. Both of the Subordinate Action examples are different scenarios that have no bearing on this.
Quickened restricts which Actions you can take.
The second example fails because Strike is your next next Action, not your next Action.
Pg 461 Specifies that you are taking the Subordinate Actions:
Activities usually take longer and require using multiple actions, which must be spent in succession. Stride is a single action, but Sudden Charge is an activity in which you use both the Stride and Strike actions to generate its effect.
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I think Mobility does apply to Nimble Roll. You are still taking a Stride Action, and Mobility doesn't care when you take the Stride Action. Both of the Subordinate Action examples are different scenarios that have no bearing on this.
Quickened restricts which Actions you can take.
The second example fails because Strike is your next next Action, not your next Action.
Pg 461 Specifies that you are taking the Subordinate Actions:
Activities usually take longer and require using multiple actions, which must be spent in succession. Stride is a single action, but Sudden Charge is an activity in which you use both the Stride and Strike actions to generate its effect.
You’ve just put words to what has been bugging me about this. If Mobility were only supposed to apply to a Stride action when its not part of any activity or reaction then why didn’t they just assign an action point to it and specify Stride as a subordinate action to Mobility itself?
So I’m inclined to think your interpretation is the correct one.
Yeah, this is good to point out. By all the potential logic we've used above, you'd be able to Shielded Stride but not to use Mobility on all these actions. Beyond this, there are two different rules that are effectively in opposition here:
Activities usually take longer and require using multiple actions, which must be spent in succession. Stride is a single action, but Sudden Charge is an activity in which you use both the Stride and Strike actions to generate its effect.Using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions.These are *really* hard to read as non-contradictory. While I think this is totally ambiguous RAW, I'm going to use the additional context of the second quote to imply that this merely means that using the activity itself does not count as the subordinate actions, but you do actually use the subordinate actions as part of using the activity. It gives haste as an example, saying that if you're hasted, you couldn't, for example, using sudden charge. That doesn't violate anything we've stated above. But there's nothing saying that once you...
The statements are not contradictory. If an ability says "You can only use Strike Actions", you could not use Power Attack, because it's not a Strike Action.
However, if an ability said "Add +1 damage to your Strike Actions", and you used Power Attack, the Subordinate Strike Action would gain +1 Damage, because it is a Strike Action.
I think Mobility does apply to Nimble Roll. You are still taking a Stride Action, and Mobility doesn't care when you take the Stride Action. Both of the Subordinate Action examples are different scenarios that have no bearing on this.
Quickened restricts which Actions you can take.
The second example fails because Strike is your next next Action, not your next Action.
Pg 461 Specifies that you are taking the Subordinate Actions:
Activities usually take longer and require using multiple actions, which must be spent in succession. Stride is a single action, but Sudden Charge is an activity in which you use both the Stride and Strike actions to generate its effect.I am confused as to how "Using an activity is not the same as using any of its subordinate actions" reconciles with your interpretation.
If anything, to me, it seems they have chosen poor examples because the examples appear to be giving people a take-away that is not compatible with the sentence they are meant to be explaining.
Because using an Activity isn't the same as using it's subordinate actions.
Using an Activity is using an Activity, but that Activity is a container, which contains other Actions, and when you use that Activity, you use those other Actions.
If an ability says "You can only use Strike Actions", you could not use Power Attack, because it's not a Strike Action.
However, if an ability said "Add +1 damage to your Strike Actions", and you used Power Attack, the Subordinate Strike Action would gain +1 Damage, because it is a Strike Action.
Because using an Activity isn't the same as using it's subordinate actions.Using an Activity is using an Activity, but that Activity is a container, which contains other Actions, and when you use that Activity, you use those other Actions.
If an ability says "You can only use Strike Actions", you could not use Power Attack, because it's not a Strike Action.
However, if an ability said "Add +1 damage to your Strike Actions", and you used Power Attack, the Subordinate Strike Action would gain +1 Damage, because it is a Strike Action.
One other point that was raised in my gaming group which I believe also supports Aratorin’s interpretation is that if we take the argument that things that trigger for basic actions don’t trigger for subordinate actions because of the “using the activity isn’t the same as using the action” rule then we get other highly counterintuitive results like a rogue not being able to apply sneak attack damage for an Opportune Backstab.
I believe the reason this line exists in the sidebar is to close a potential loophole where players might break the action economy. (i.e. use more than 3 actions during their turn.
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The relevant example the book provides on this topic is:
As another example, if you used an action that specified, “If the next action you use is a Strike,” an activity that includes a Strike wouldn’t count, because the next thing you are doing is starting an activity, not using the Strike basic action.Which means that when you Nimble Dodge + Nimble Roll, that's an activity that includes a Stride - not taking the Stride action.
Why do you believe that Nimble Dodge isn’t an activity? It doesn’t take more than one action.
I always thought an activity was any enterprise consisting of two or more actions. Was I wrong?
I always thought an activity was any enterprise consisting of two or more actions. Was I wrong?
An activity typically involves using multiple actions to create an effect greater than you can produce with a single action, or combining multiple single actions to produce an effect that’s different from merely the sum of those actions. In some cases, usually when spellcasting, an activity can consist of only 1 action, 1 reaction, or even 1 free action.
Thanks Aratorin.